Destiny 2 shatters PlayStation records and tops a million concurrent players for over a week

It sounds like the suits are pretty pleased with sales performance so far. In a press release, Bungie announced that the multiplayer shooter has already set a new record for the first day of sales in the PlayStation Store, overshooting its predecessor’s achievements in that area.

While the studio wasn’t giving specific numbers for units solid on either console, Bungie did say that Destiny 2 has racked up eight days of topping a million players enjoying the game concurrently. We do know that the game has topped retail charts in Japan, cranking out over 50K sales in its first week.

“Destiny 2 is off to a strong start as the #1 console gaming launch week of the year to date,” said Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg. “With the PC version yet to ship, Destiny 2 sets the stage for being one of the biggest video game entertainment events of the year.”

How do you figure it’s no where near as popular? 1.3 million concurrent players says you’re wrong. More people pre-ordered, it broke the PSN day one sales number, and sold more digital copies in the first week than the first game.

Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg noted that the company saw “engagement at the highest ever week-one concurrency for the franchise.”

All this with two less platforms, which accounted for 20% of Destiny’s sales. Yeah, it sounds “nowhere” as popular.

Ummm, I think there has been a huge rise in digital sales in the last couple years that more than counterbalance that. Some articles are saying digital sales have become almost 3/4 of all game sales.

Back in 2016 one analyst said “In 2016, we saw the adoption of full game downloads on consoles accelerate. This season the percentage of games sold this way is roughly five times greater than it was in 2012.”

And the acceleration has continued in 2017. So, yeah, it is very possible.

In addition to large growth in digital console game sales, the addition of another platform (PC) has likely cannibalized the sales from consoles. So it’s highly possible, even probable, that Destiny 2 actually hasn’t sold as well as Destiny 1 yet; but once it has hit all three platforms, it will probably see a larger install base than Destiny 1 ever did.